


The Night Shift

by kamanzi



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/F, Multi, Other, and maybe not that dubious but I’ll let y’all be the judge of that, but not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 16:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21341515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamanzi/pseuds/kamanzi
Summary: Catra was used to it, getting a bad night’s sleep. But a bad night’s sleep was not typically spent spread beneath Adora’s sinewy form.Or: Catra is desperate in more ways than one.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Catra/Double Trouble (She-Ra), kind of - Relationship, you’ll see - Relationship
Comments: 12
Kudos: 256





	The Night Shift

**Author's Note:**

> canon compliant flavor kind of and taking place somewhere before s4e7 but honestly who knows not me y’all know better than I do and nobody knows better than noelle

Catra was used to it, getting a bad night’s sleep. It was a regular-enough occurrence that the bags beneath her eyes had grown to such a weight that, during the day, she could practically feel her neck straining to hold her head upright. A bad night’s sleep was old hat, indeed.

Usually, though, bad nights’ sleeps were caused by stress, or nightmares, or stress-induced nightmares. They were not typically spent spread beneath Adora’s sinewy form.

So, yes, tonight that part at least was new.

After they were done and Adora collapsed beside her, heaving and sweating and grinning that perfectly Adora grin—somehow simultaneously both smug and genuine—Catra couldn’t help but cough out a wry chuckle. She brought her knuckles to her closed eyelids and rubbed them deeply.

“Uh—” she said awkwardly, because—completely bare but for the thin blanket pulled up to her navel—how else could she possibly say it under the circumstances? She reopened her eyes and blinked the spots away until the metal ceiling above her held nothing but the regular straight lines of ducts and grates again. “Thanks. For . . . that.”

Adora giggled and pulled a stray hair behind her ear. “Yeah, well. Happy to serve.” Her smile turned a bit funny—soft, almost—as she surveyed Catra before reaching out her hand to do the same for her, scratching lightly from Catra’s hairline and around her skull to the place from which ear tufts used to spring.

Catra, already feeling a little shameless, leaned into Adora’s touch, but just managed to stifle a purr that threatened to rumble through her throat.

“Do you think that did the job, then?” Adora asked in a low voice that could’ve been _caring_ , of all things, withdrawing her hand to tuck it between her own cheek and the threadbare mattress.

Just then, Catra’s eyes began to droop. “Maybe it did,” she said before shutting them, feeling the glorious relief of their weight being unloaded. “I think it did, actually.”

Silently, perhaps seconds away from drifting off, Catra reveled in the humid heat radiating off Adora’s body. She wasn’t quite ready to express this out loud to anyone, but she’d missed it, sharing a bed with someone. Sharing a bed with Adora specifically, even. The way that they used to curl perfectly around each other. The indescribable pull to fit her hand delicately around Adora’s jaw bone.

But they had never before done what it was that they just did. The fact that they had just done what they just did, though, would maybe shed a bit of light on what that pull meant—if only Catra was willing to acknowledge it herself, even internally.

Again, Catra would do anything else, even exile  herself to Beast Island, before she would make these statements out loud. In her almost-unconscious state, however, her resolve crumbled the slightest bit, and the tiniest purr slipped from her lips.

Adora hummed. “Aw. You sleepy, kitten?”

The answer to that question, before asked, would’ve been an unequivocal “yes.” But instead Catra’s eyes snapped open, and she surged upward to sit straight and pull the sheet firmly over her chest. “Don’t call me that,” she growled, throwing a quick, withering glare in Adora’s direction.

Adora blinked—normally, first, but then with inner lids that closed sideways like a curtain. With another wide grin, this time nothing but smug, she drawled, “Ah, I see. Broke the illusion, didn’t I? My mistake.”

Adora’s silhouette darkened, then glowed, then undulated until, finally, she was Double Trouble once more.

“Personally, I thought I’d nailed her character down pat,” they said, rubbing their nails against their chest—clothed, though it had just been as bare as Catra’s in Adora’s form. Then they kicked their side of the blankets off of themself and slithered gracefully off of the bed. “But I suppose she doesn’t call you that, does she?”

In lieu of responding, Catra slumped over herself, her heavy eyes dragging her head down to rest on top of her bended knees. “It doesn’t matter,” Catra said after a long second (albeit in a way that sounded kind of forced, even to her own ears). “I just needed to sleep. That helped. We’re done here.”

“Darling,” Double Trouble said, managing to drag out the word sufficiently long to demonstrate the depths of their dripping incredulity. “If that was true, if it wasn’t about the _character_ , you needn’t have sought me out specifically, now would you?”

Catra’s head reeled upwards to level Double Trouble with a devastating sneer. “I didn’t _ask _ you to become She Ra,” she spat. “That was your own sick choice.”

Double Trouble smiled kindly, in the way that people smile at objects of pity, as they threaded the tip of their tail almost flirtatiously through their clawed fingers. “I wasn’t She Ra, though, was I?”

Catra opened her mouth to reply, but bit it back as Double Trouble tutted and shook their head.

“And I could argue with you,” they opined, “that you certainly didn’t protest—I only wanted to give you your money’s worth, after all. But whatever you say, kitten. If we’re done here . . .” They thrust their hand forward, open palm upward, with a final smirk.

Catra’s jaw was stiff, her teeth grinding down on each other so hard that it wasn’t without a moderate effort that she finally whispered, “Fine.” And she leaned to the side, one hand desperately clamping the sheet to her collar bone, the other digging up a fat sack of coins. She dumped it unceremoniously into Double Trouble’s waiting fingers. “Now get out.”

Double Trouble hefted the sinched bag and, apparently satisfied with its weight, winked as they tucked it away. “A pleasure, dear. I’ll call you from Brightmoon tomorrow, same time as usual.” Then they turned on their heel and waved vaguely over their shoulder as they disappeared through a door across the room.

It was a couple of minutes before Catra leaned back onto the mattress. But, although her eyes were still heavy with exhaustion, she stared unseeingly at the ceiling for hours more, until her own internal clock decided it was time to rise for a new day.

A bad night’s sleep, Catra was used to. To the bile that burned the back of her throat, however, she was not.

**Author's Note:**

> hashtag blessed to be writing again, smash that kudos/comment if you agree


End file.
